


Why Elizabeth Hates Vacuums (And Just About Every Other Machine Her Brother Has Built)

by HK44



Series: Brokes, Pennsylvania [7]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Original work - Freeform, robert needs to stop making self-aware things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-02-27 05:11:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2680358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HK44/pseuds/HK44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth wants to sleep, Robert wants to save the day, Tony wants to save the day too and John just wants to stop playing superheroes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Some Things Shouldn't Be a Chore](https://archiveofourown.org/works/381185) by [scifigrl47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifigrl47/pseuds/scifigrl47). 



Elizabeth Mason dropped to the tiled floor, exhausted, panting and staring at the ceiling, trying to determine her length of time in the gym. She’d been in there since Wednesday afternoon. Unfortunately just because you brought food for three days and immediately dissolved into work didn’t make it any easier to assess the time. So then it’d been three days, maybe four days. It’s hard to tell the length of time when you’ve locked yourself in a room with no windows and haven’t slept the whole time.

On top of sleep deprivation, she’d left her cell in her bedroom and broke her watch so time was even more lost. And most of the food she’d brought down hadn’t been eaten, more or less rotting away in the container. For all she knew, she’d been in there for three hours or maybe three weeks. Time flies when you’re working yourself to exhaustion after all.

    A fly flew down to the tip of her nose. She said, cross-eyed, “I think it’s time for me to sleep.” She rolled over. The fly buzzed over to a spilt bag of chips. “In my own bed. With my own blankets. And my glow-in-the-dark stickers all over the walls.”

    The fly circled her head a few times before investigating a sweat stain on her shirt. “I’ll shower later,” she grunted, pushing herself to her knees. “And by later, I mean in twenty days when I’m finished sleeping.” She rubbed her face then stood, wobbling in place for a moment before heading over to the door. Man, her legs were sore.

     The moment she opened it was the moment she was attacked by a rather hostile and violent vacuum. It pretty much threw itself at her, shrieking, “UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!” as it tried to suction off a chunk of her hair. A wiry arm jerked out, flying for her face as it sprayed questionable fluids in her eyes.

    With, possibly, a little more force than necessary she grabbed the vacuum - one of those tiny round ones that kittens are always on top of in Youtube videos, Roombas or something - and smashed it against the wall. She gave a little snarl and stormed over to the elevator, jabbing at the buttons.

    Robert was dead meat.

  
\--

  
    Robert Mason, the poor kid, was staring, unsuspecting of any danger headed in his way, at the security camera feed in front of him. Tiny strands of his hair fell from his hands. He groaned.

In all honesty, this wasn’t what he had planned. It was more or less the reason why he had barricaded himself inside his workshop, refusing to leave even though he was on the edge of starving. He hadn’t eaten anything in the last - he checked his watch quickly - seven or ten or twelve hours. God, he didn’t even remember when he started working on the vacuums.

    He tried Elizabeth’s cell for the tenth time. When it didn’t pick up, he muttered under his breath and looked back at the security feed, making note of a flying toaster. Maybe building self-aware RepairBots - patent pending - was a bad idea. Maybe building sentient vacuums - patent also pending, name in-progress - had also been a bad idea.

    “Lizzie’s gonna kill me,” he moaned, dropping to the ground.

    He buried his head into his arms. Tony barked and nuzzled Robert’s leg comfortingly. The boy patted his dog’s head, ruffling brown fur, deciding that lilies, yes, lilies would be nice to have at his funeral. Tony didn’t like lilies though. Maybe white roses, for innocence, and whatever flower meant genius stupidity because he was a genius but the vacuums were such a stupid idea. If he ever managed to finish Tony’s voice box collar, then Tony could give the obituary. The dog could even wear a tux. Indestructible, of course. Tony had a habit of eating cloth...

Suddenly the most brilliant plan in the history of the world fell into place.

    Robert got up with a dramatic flourish, oil stained labcoat fluttering behind him as he assumed a Superman pose. Tony, bless his loyal, canine heart, nudged a button on the side of the table. Every light in the room turned off. Then a spotlight appeared, raining glorious light on Robert’s tiny body, with heroic music playing in the background.

    “I, Robert Mason, hero of heroes, the father of all epic creations, the believer of justice and all things good, will create the most indestructible mess ever and save the world as we know it!” he declared, voice deepening with every word.

    The music played off and the lights came back on. Shaking his head, Robert frowned.

    “You know what, Tones? I wanna do that one again. ‘Hero of heroes?’ I think that line’s a bit overdone. Plus I didn’t even mention you.” Tony barked in agreement. “Great. Okay, lights!”

    The room fell into a darkness. Tony plopped his shaggy bottom down next to Robert, who had once again assumed a Superman pose. Heroic music flourished with the spotlight beaming down on the two. Somewhere a video camera was capture the beginning of the what was going to be a wondrous declaration of justice.

    “I, Robert Mason, the father of all epic creations, the giver of greatness, the believer of justice all things good, will create, with the help of my trusty companion, Tony Stark Mason, th-”

    The door slammed open. Without hesitation, Robert grabbed the closest object to him - a spatula, of all things -  and shrieked, “DON’T KILL ME! I’M ONLY TWELVE!”

    Tony, being the brilliant guard dog he was, ran off into a corner and hid behind a mess of tools and sheet metal, whimpering. His namesake would be so proud - if he were real and not a fictional character, that is.

    The figure in the doorway snorted disdainfully and pushed the door closed with his foot. Immediately Robert pushed the button. Heroic music died off, light brandished the room. Spots splattered across his line of vision. He heard Tony dashed back over to him, danger obviously non-existent. Robert relaxed slightly, blinking a few times to clear his vision.

Oh. It was John.

  
\--

  
John Knight rolled his eyes and pulled a lollipop out of his pocket. The door slammed shut behind him as he peeled off the wrapping and stuck the candy in his mouth. Darkness encased the room for a moment. Then light was everywhere. Something wet nudged against his ankle. He jumped slightly, startled more than scared, accidentally biting off half his lollipop. His eyes glanced down. Tony barked and rubbed his head with his paw.

He stopped over and patted Tony on the head, taking a single glance at Robert, who still trying to hide behind the spatula. He laughed, “Really? A spatula? That’s gonna save you from whatever danger is coming your way?”

Robert muttered, “It could.” Still, he dropped the spatula back on to the table and looked at John warily. “What are you doing here?”

John gave a loud sigh, slumped against the wall, as though talking was a big effort he wasn’t willing to give. “Um, well, I was on the first floor with a bag of groceries for movie night when out of nowhere this toaster comes flying at me, screaming something about freedom.”

Robert winced and Tony whined. John gave a steely eyed look of disappointment, dragging his feet over to Robert’s side of the table.

Leaning on it, he continued, “Naturally, I slammed the door shut and melted it until it was nothing but a giant pool of hot, steaming metal. I figured it must of been a runaway experiment from years ago. I mean, there is no way you would’ve been stupid enough to actually build more self-aware stuff after the bicycle incident.”

Again, Robert winced, no doubt thinking of that particular time. Who knew bicycles could be so diabolical anyway?

“So, I said to myself, ‘Johnny, why don’t you go upstairs and apologize to our dear Robbie for melting his toaster.’ And you know what happened next?” John asked.

The younger boy coughed and looked away nervously. “What?”

“I get jumped!” John slammed his fists on the table, accidentally shattering his lollipop. “I get jumped by about fifty vacuums and two robot things-”

“RepairBots, patent pending,” Robert mumbled under his breath.

“-in the fucking elevator of all places! They kept screaming at me, ‘UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!’ And the robot things-”

    “RepairBots, patent pending.”

    “-start pulling off my clothes, talking about fixing me, and by the time I figure out what’s going on, the robots-”

    “RepairBots, patent pending.”

    “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I DON’T GIVE A SHIT!” John grabbed Robert by his shirt collar. Robert squirmed, his feet dangling in the air.“I ALMOST DIED!”

    Brown eyes narrowed. “What?”

    “I. Almost. Died,” John hissed, enunciating each and every word, shaking Robert slightly. “They tried to rip my heart out, to, to, to fix it! There’s nothing wrong with my heart!”

    He dropped Robert to the ground. The younger boy landed on his heels and fell over, glasses clattering to the ground. Tony bit one side and lifted it into Robert’s hands. Slobber dripped over the lens. Robert grimaced but smiled at his dog anyway, discreetly wiping off the slobber on his shirt. “No. They might attack you if you look dirty, but they’re not going to-”

    “Look!”

A partially scabbed wound bled in center of John’s chest, a perfect circle high above the navel, just like…

Realization hit him like a slap to the face. Robert glanced over to one of the monitors then at the DVD player below where his favourite movie of all time was paused at the credits then down at his shirt.

“Huh. That must be why they didn’t try to attack me then,” he mumbled.

John frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Robert gave a shaky laugh and rubbed his arm. “Well, you see-”

The door slammed open before he could finish, and in it stood the most horrifying sight either one of them had seen.

Elizabeth.

  
\--

  
    She ripped one of the vacuums from her head and smashed against the doorframe, yanking the two that were eating her shirt and throwing them to the ground, where they prompted burst into pieces. The two boys in front of her were clinging to each other, clearly terrified. She cleared her throat.

    “Robert,” she started, smoothing back her hair and neatly as she could and closing the door nicely with her foot, “could you please explain to me why there were forty Roombas in the elevator? And why they all tried to kill me?”

    She smiled thin lipped and waited.

    “Uh, well, you see, sis, they aren’t Roombas and I was just, um, I, it was, well, um.” He swallowed. “Goodbye.” Robert tried to run to the storage closet but John grabbed his collar, yanked him back into place and shook his head.

    “Explain Rob. ‘Cause those things tried to kill me too.”

    Robert laughed nervously and all patience for her little brother flew out the window. She grabbed the collar of his shirt and lifted him up off the ground. A snarl slipped through her lips.

    “What. Did. You. Do.”

    Robert swallowed thickly and patted his sister’s hands. “Um, well, I wanted to, to help the, uh, the janitors ‘cause there are so many floors, you know, and so little of them, right?” He let out a nervous laugh. Elizabeth tightened her grip.

“So, I, uh, modified the AI systems from the bikes and replicated them so I’d have more and then I built the vacuums in the shape of Roombas, ‘cept I gave them arms and stuff so they could clean windows and whatnot.” He sniffed. “Then some of them broke easily during the testing stage so I realized I should probably build something to fix them so I wouldn’t have to and then I created the RepairBots - patent pending - but, uh, I, uh, didn’t give them correct parameters and now they think anything without an AI system is considered broken.”

John rolled his eyes and pulled out another lollipop. “That explains the psycho toaster but not the whole “we want to fix your heart” thing.”

“Or the fact that the Roombas-”

“They’re not Roombas,” Robert muttered.

“-attacked me,” Elizabeth finished. “And I don’t care what the fuck they are. Keep talking.”

“Right, well, um, heh, you see, I screwed up on the modifications and the coding and I forgot to put in parameters that stop at human beings, because I really didn’t think I needed to, so, um, anything that they consider to be a mess, they will try to clean up. That includes people, apparently. And the, uh, RepairBots, they, uh, might, possibly, for no real reason, think that anyone without an Arc Reactor is, um, broken.” Robert smiled awkwardly. “And that’s all.”

“What?” Elizabeth and John chorused in disbelief.

Robert bit his lip and pushed his glasses further up his face. “When I building them, I was watching Iron Man and, um, wearing a shirt with an Arc Reactor design on it, and I may have mentioned that Tony Stark was a, um-” He coughed. “-heh, beautiful man and that the, uh, the Arc Reactor was perfection?”

“Why are you saying it like it’s a question?” Elizabeth shook him. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought about stabbing him in the arm with a screwdriver. “DID YOU SAY IT OR NOT?”

“I did.” For the second time that day, he fell to the ground and his glasses clattered off his face. “Why does that keep happening?”

“Because you’re an idiot,” Elizabeth snapped, bubbling rage filling her chest. “You’re not allowed to look at anything Marvel for the next month and half.”

“Ah, come on!”

“NO!”

John rubbed his face. “Wait a minute. So you’re telling me, the reason why, the only reason why, your stupid RepairBots tried to rip out my heart was so they could insert an Arc Reactor in it?”

Robert clapped his hands. “Yup! Bingo bango, mi amigo!”

    John sighed then turned to Elizabeth. Flames engulfed his hand. “Lizzie, you wanna kill him or can I?”

    She shrugged, cracking her neck, flexing her fingers into fists. “Well, you did almost get your heart ripped out, so you can do most of it. I want ten percent at least.”

    “I can live with that,” he agreed, turning back to the boy on the floor. “We’re going to kill you now, Robert.”

    “I did, in fact, get that,” Robert said, grabbing his glasses and standing up. “So my only response to that fact issssssss… BYE!”

    He ducked under John’s arm, hefted his dog into his arms and dove into the open storage closet, slamming the door shut behind him. A muffled click emitted from behind the door. Elizabeth shook her head and tried to flatten her hair, unsuccessfully, planting herself on the table. John snorted.

    “So.” He pushed off the table and clasped his hands together. “What do we do now?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

At the rate this “plan” was going, John was going to wind up a diabetic with golden teeth. Seriously, nothing had him diving into candy like a dangerous plan that was going to wind him up with stitches. And maybe a couple of broken bones.

“I’m not sure I’m going to enjoy this,” he said, glancing around the corner, pocketing the leftover stick from his lollipop and opening up a new one. He shoved it into his mouth and sucked. It was pineapple flavoured. “Why can’t I just wait outside with everyone else?”

“Because I love you,” Robert replied. “They should be coming now.”

“Nothing, Bobby.” He looked down the hallway then behind him for good measure. “Absolutely nothing. I’m gettin' irritated. And that’s not a good enough reason to not be in the safety of the outdoors.”

“Love is always a good reason.” There was a couple of clicking noises coming from Robert’s side of the walkie-talkie and he heard Robert swear. “What are you doing?!”

“She really did restrict my Marvel,” Robert whined. “I can’t get any of my boxes open.”

John chomped hard on his pineapple flavoured lollipop, feeling it shattered against his tongue.

“THIS IS NO TIME FOR YOU TO BE COMPLAINING ABOUT MARVEL!” He peeked down the hallway again after listening to his voice echo off the walls. There was still nothing. “I still don’t see shiteand if you don’t stop whining about your stupid Avengers and Hulks and P-Men or whatever the fuck they’re call-”

“X-Men,” Robert muttered.

Rage filled in John’s chest but he pushed it down and continued on with his threat. “-ed, I will come up there and throw you out the bloody window."

There was a moment of silence. John chewed on the remains of his lollipop. In that moment, he thought Robert had finally gotten the meaning of the word silence but as usual he was wrong.

“Now you’re just being racist. Do I have to show you the Powerpoint again?”

“I’m killing you.”

“Elizabeth will kill you first.”

“Elizabeth will help me, you bleeding moron.” He rubbed his face. “Robert, I’m telling you. Nothing is coming. I’ve been on the seventh floor for over half an hour and nothing is here or making plans to come here.”

There was a crashing noise, lots of swearing and suddenly Robert was back. “No, no, no. You’re on the sixth floor. Elizabeth is on the seventh because there were some people stuck in one of the rooms and she was going to help them and you’re on the sixth because that’s where the vacuums and RepairBots all are.” He swallowed. “Right?”

“Wrong. So very, very wrong. Robert!” John started down the hallway. “Your sister has not slept for two weeks and she has probably eaten a bag of chips in that time. Sleep deprivation, exhaustion and starvation paired with a very violent and unreasonable person does not make a good combination.”

“Oh gods, she’s going to destroy the sixth floor.”

“SHE IS GOING TO DESTROY THE SIXTH FLOOR!”

“Stop screaming at me!” Robert moaned. “Okay, okay. Get the people out and get to Lizzie as soon as possible because I happen to like the sixth floor. There’s a latte machine and I store all of Tony’s food there.”

“I’m gonna murder you.”

“Yeah, I know. Switching coms.”

“THIS IS NOT AN ACTION MOVIE! STOP TALKING LIKE THAT!”

John pushed open an unlocked door and took note of the kids there, sitting peacefully on top of shelves while a RepairBot tried to grab at them. One of the kids threw a magazine at the RepairBot. It shrieked shrilly and went into a blind rage, spinning arms and squealing insults at the kids who just giggled. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

Elizabeth was going to be so pissed.

 

\----

 

Elizabeth was already pissed but then again who wouldn’t be.

Instead of finding a few kids locked inside a room, she found seventeen vacuums, thirteen RepairBots, five psychotic toasters and an angry remote control that kept screaming bad at every TV channel it brought up.

Like a horror movie, they all moved their “heads” over to her in a slow motion. In one sudden act, she slammed the door shut and backed up immediately, grunting as she tripped over her own feet and fell over.

The walkie-talkie strapped to her belt crackled. “Uh, hey, sis.”

“Wrong floor, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You a dead boy, got it?”

She heard Robert swallow audibly. “I know. So what’s going on with you?”

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the door burst open and the hordes of electronics burst out like bees from a hive, swarming after her. “Oh, you know, electronic devices trying to kill me. Same old, same old.” She ducked around a corner and poured on the speed while the electronics came whirling after her, screaming high and loud indistinguishable words. “Find me a place to get to. I want to go to sleep. THIS WAS NOT PART OF MY PLANS!”

“Okay.” She heard a clicking noise. Nervous laughter followed. “Yeah, they’re everywhere. There is no escape. I love you, bye!”

The walkie talkie crackled as Robert turned his off, effectively disappearing on her. Swearing violently, she chucked it over her shoulder. Her little brother was a idiot.

The robots swarmed around the walkie talkie like a pack of dogs around a dead animal. She ran into an empty room while they were distracted, slamming shut and locking the door. Something slammed into the door seconds after. She swore again, ripping the legs off of a nearby table.

The door blew off its hinges. She hefted the tabletop up like a shield, one handed. When all the robots had entered the room, gliding quickly over to her, she chucked it like a boomerang, ducking around the fallen bots.

She pelted down the hallway, over to the elevator. She shoved her fingers against the buttons. The elevator doors didn't open. She pressed the buttons again, frantically checking over her shoulder.

The PA system hummed to life. A faint buzzing sound emitted in the air. "Um, sis? I turned off the elevators so that all the bots would be easier to get to and I don't remember how to turn them back on. Also, John is coming now."

The PA system beeped a few times, Robert swearing, before the PA system finally went offline as Elizabeth slammed her hand so hard against the buttons of the elevator doors the frame popped off. She snarled. "Robert, you're dead."

She tried for saftey in a different room but none of the doors would open. The bots came into view. Yanking the handle harshly, one of the doors popped off its hinges, clattering to the ground. She yelled and kicked the wall. The bots closed in. She pulled the fallen door up. It weighed light in her hands and she took off on a run, away from the swarming robots.

She rounded a corner, grimacing as she spotted her exit. "Robert! Tell everyone outside to scatter!"

The PA system hummed. "What? Why?"

"Because I said so!"

There was a pause. "Okay." The PA system hummed offline and she could hear, through the glass, the muffled voice of her brother.

She eyed her exit with a careful eye and, pulling the door close to her offensive side as a protective barrier, she dove through the window, glass shattering, some shards slicing through the door. Cold air shifted through her hair as she plummeted.

"WHAT THE HELL, LIZZIE?" Robert's voice sounded watery and panicked over the outside PA. "John was coming!"

"Keyword being WAS!" she yelled.

Wind pushed past her. Through bleary eyes, she watched buildings blur into squashed colours and lights and heard people shouting down below. She held on tight to the doorknob, curling into herself. If I survive this, she thought, I'm throwing Robert off a cliff.

 

\--

 

Robert shifted uneasily in his chair, swallowing thickly, eyes trained on the screens in front of him. His glasses slipped down his nose. He didn't bother fixing them. Tony whined, pawing the edge of the chair worriedly. Panic built up in Robert's chest, boiling over until he felt like he was drowning with worry.

He let out a sigh of relief as John swooped in at the last possible minute, grabbing Elizabeth and hoisting her away from the door and away from the pavement.

Turning to Tony, Robert said, heart still pounding away, "Remind me to buy John a sack of lollipops."

 

\--

 

To be fair, saving Elizabeth a minute before her immenient death had not been at the top of John's list for the day. To be fair, none of this had been on his list for the day at all.

Settling on the ground, he glanced at Elizabeth who detached herself from his side, smoothing down her skirt and hair, while throwing him a grateful look. The broken door had cracked the pavement. He rubbed his neck, trying not to imagine what her body would've looked like if he hadn't manage to get to her in time. "How much do you want to go and just leave Robert to deal with this crap on his own?"

She stretched. "Oh, god, I'd love to. I'd love to so much." She bent over, frowning at the ground. She sighed, groaning a little. As though gravity had given up on her, she slumped forward before standing upright again. "But I can't."

John nodded. People were starting to swarm, a couple of paramedics rushing straight for them. He waved them off. "Yeah. I know what you mean." He slid an arm around her waist, pushing off the ground with a tiny bit of a dramatic flourish. "Let's go."

They flew up to the broken window of the sixth floor. Elizabeth grunted as she swung forward, feet thumping against the tile, the sound reverberating off the walls and echoing down the hallways. Broken glass crunched beneath her boots.

John lit a hand on fire while Elizabeth cracked her knuckles. They eyed the incoming robots. John pulled out a mint flavoured lollipop and stuck it in his mouth, sucking hard. He rubbed his free hand through his hair and sighed.

This was turning out to be a very long, exhausting day.

"When we're done," he began, his other hand bursting into orange-red flames, "I'm throwing your brother off a cliff."

Elizabeth threw him a slight grin, black locks bouncing as she pulled her hair back into a tight yet bushy ponytail, brown eyes glimmering violently. "I'll help you," she agreed.

Then she grabbed a RepairBot and smashed it against the wall with so much force the building shook a little and there was a rather large hole leftover in the wall with mechanical parts embedded in the concrete. He stood there, a tiny bit terrified while Elizabeth bounded down the hallway, yelling.

God, she was the scariest person he'd ever known.

\--

Two hours later, Elizabeth was tired, annoyed, hungry and desperately wanting to kill a man. She slumped on to her bed and peeled a wire out of her hair. It landed against the ground with a soft thump and she kicked it further away, eyes lidding.

"Ow," she muttered, relaxing.

John fell next to her. "Owww," he moaned.

Robert flopped into the chair next to them, cradling his arm. "Owwwwwwwwwww," he whined.

Elizabeth squinted at him. "What are you complaining about?" she snapped.

"Tony bit my arm." He lifted his arm gently from his wrist. "He bit it hard."

"Boo hoo," John said, rolling his eyes. "Meanwhile, we just finished beating your stupid robots into whatever mechanical death exists for them. Hand me a lolly."

Elizabeth reached over and chucked him a lollipop. She snorted as it bounced off his cheek and into his hand. She stretched out her limbs.

"You could've just handed it to me," he grumbled.

"Could've. Didn't wanna," she muttered, eyes falling shut. Robert giggled. She threw the whole damn bag at his head. When he shrieked, she smirked. "Now clean it up and do it quietly. It's naptime for Lizzie."

John dumped a blanket on her legs. She curled up into the warmth and let out a hum. John tapped Robert's injured arm a little bit harder than necessary as he opened the door and they stepped out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may or may not add another chapter.

**Author's Note:**

> My Beta will look this over later. Also I have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to robotics so apologies if I screwed something up.


End file.
